Real-time simulation of water surface
Vladimir D. Belyaev · 2003
The paper is devoted to efficient algorithms for computer simulation of water surface with waves. The water surface is a usual component of virtual environment in trainers/simulators and games and often should look as highly realistic as possible, which leads to sophisticated algorithms. On the other hand, these algorithms are aimed at real time mode, and their high speed is crucial. This paper embraces a number of techniques covering all three steps of water simulation: the surface generation, optical effects imitation and building a polygon mesh. Some of the used techniques are well known; we have adapted them to real time requirements. Some new algorithms were developed. There are presented results of implementation of these three steps altogether: on up-to-date personal computers we can calculate and render the surface 30 times per sec and spend at most 8 ms for each frame.